The droll tone in Jim's voice and the tension visible on Joann's furled brow gave away the challenge that was about to be.
As our jet propelled aluminum tube rocketed through simulated New York airspace, in a heartbeat the ship went from fully functional powered by both engine generators to dark, quite and powered by a 24 volt lead acid battery. The annunciator panel and master warning lights lit up like a rock concert and the flight navigation displays went as dark as a moonless night away from the city. The failure of the electrical generators rendered many of the electrical sub-systems useless and therefore required a no-flap landing with the ILS instrument approach (hand) flown by reference to the only gyro still operating--the stand-by gyro located away from my visual convenience near Joann's instrument cluster.
The stand-by gyro approach is an exercise in many things, but precise control inputs to the flight controls and throttles ranks number one in my book. If the control movements are too excessive-as they can be when staring at a poorly lit instrument the size of a deck of cards from across the cockpit-the approach is guaranteed not to be stabilized and the procedure a hot mess. After Joann finished the emergency checklist items during our extended downwind leg to the ILS back into JFK, we configured the ship for landing (read extended the gear, minus the flaps) I briefed her on our CRM technique for the procedure. CRM, crew resource management, means many things, but during this procedure it meant specifically having Joann read me airspeed deviations of at least plus or minus 5 knots and course deviations on the localizer (lateral navigation) and glideslope (vertical navigation) of at least half a dot. For example, if I was 5 knots fast, Joann would say, "airspeed fast", or if I was half a dot left of the localizer Joann say, "left of course, right turn five degrees. Stop. Left turn. Stop. On course." To both of these challenges I would respond, "correcting." With both of us on the same page and our airplane configured for landing and stabilized, we notified approach control that we were ready for the turn onto final for the runway.
Beyond flying precision and crew coordination, the no flap landing technique requires a steeper pitch attitude because the wing's center of lift is more forward than on typical landings with flaps and less power because of the absence of the flap's drag, but more airspeed due to because of the increased stall speed. So, all the power and pitch settings I knew for the Citation's different configurations were now utterly useless and it was now a matter of guesswork and whittling away at tolerances to figure out the proper pitch and power setting to get the appropriate performance. All down the localizer and glideslope for a 5 mile eternity Joann is barking out corrective orders as my palms get sweaty and my neck and shoulders increasing strained from leaning right into her personal space over the center pedestal and looking down. My anxiety is nearly at a boil because the ILS navigation is increasing in sensitivity as we fly closer to the runway (and ground) and my control inputs are decreasing to compensate. Then suddenly, like it was there the entire time, runway 4L became visible as the ship broke out of the clouds at 200' above the ground. Just a few knots fast and with ever so minor adjustments we landed on Terra Firma, on the runway's center line coming to a full stop on the runway.
Instructor Jim was very pleased with my airmanship and the performance of the crew. We debriefed the sim session and briefed up for the next day's challenge in the Citation short course: high, hot and heavy (summer operations) and snow, blow'n and froze (winter operations). With that situation over and passed, there would be no rest for the weary, even as badly as I needed it. Tomorrow's session included the worst case scenarios from the two most challenging flying seasons in one day. Would I be up for the task and the two surprises I knew Jim was keeping silently in his bag of tricks?
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